


8a8y it's cold outside

by CrowsAtAPicnic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humanstuck, johnvris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrowsAtAPicnic/pseuds/CrowsAtAPicnic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's winter break.  Vriska is bored, and John is willing to put up with her shit.  Also he's kind of cute.  She thinks she'll keep him around.<br/>---<br/>I noticed there aren't that many exclusively JohnVris fics on AO3, so I decided to remedy that.  This will contain copious amounts of fluff and angst to keep it interesting.  You have been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I didn't originally ship these two, but then I was whacked in the face by sudden JohnVris feels when I heard this song: http://youtu.be/tMH7W5iA488

The first time she kissed you, it was snowing hard and you could barely feel your nose and the frozen sidewalk hurt your feet with every step, but that hardly mattered because she had you by your scarf and wow her eyes were really blue and you try to ignore the pain in your lip when she bit it a little too hard because you’ve wanted this for so fucking long. You tried not to think about how she’s an inch taller than you as you stretched up, just slightly, to deepen the kiss, but then she’s shoving you away and laughing. A blush crept onto your cheeks and you smiled sheepishly.

“Oh my god, you are _such_ a dork,” she snickered. Another flick of her bangs and she was off again, and you had to jog to catch up with her. The snow was falling in huge, heavy flakes, Seattle’s way of reminding you that you would never escape the rain, even when it was below freezing and the wind seemed set on biting your nose off.

“Um. Vriska?” Your voice broke. You cleared your throat and tried again, lips suddenly feeling chapped. “Vriska. What was that?”

“It’s winter break, John. I’m having a little fun. It didn’t mean anything!” She snorted when she glanced at you, reaching a gloved hand up to your lips and scrubbing off some navy blue lipstick that had smeared there, and you tried not to let your disappointment show. Ha, that’s right, it didn’t mean anything. Just some stupid teenagers doing stupid things. What else was high school for?

The thing was, it _had_ felt like it meant something. You would be lying if you said you weren’t thinking about kissing her today (as if you didn’t think about it every time you were with her). She’d called you at nine in the morning demanding that you buy her coffee because ‘Jegus Christ John it is fucking freezing in my apartment and my mom is God knows where again and I need sustenance’. You liked to think that you’d learned how to translate Vriska’s way of speaking pretty well since you met her in eighth grade, and you were fairly certain that she meant ‘I’m lonely and my bitch of a mother is neglecting me again and I can’t drive so you need to take me to Starbucks’. So you rolled out of bed and put on some pants to drive her to Starbucks. 

You sat in Starbucks for an hour and a half, watching her drink a peppermint latte you bought for her and laugh at the customers who came in behind her. Her lips left blue prints on the edge of the cup, which probably should have grossed you out or something but it seemed to do the exact opposite; her precise shade of blue had quickly become your favorite color after she started wearing the lipstick, which you knew she did just to piss off her mom but you thought she looked really good in it. It somehow complemented her ocher skin.

It had just been so warm and cozy, and she wasn’t being quite as closed-off to you as she normally was. She absently played with her spider bite piercings in between sips, which did not help you get your mind off kissing her.

Walking home, she walked slower than normal, and you knew it was because the only thing waiting for her at home was her pet tarantula, which you knew from experience was not very good company (though Vriska would probably slap you if you insulted Spinneret out loud).

Eventually, you decided against bringing up the kiss again. Knowing Vriska, it really was just a spur-of-the-moment, ‘ha-ha I bet his reaction would be hilarious’ kind of thing. You could appreciate a prank. Ha.

She didn’t call or text you for the rest of the day. There was still a few traces of blue on your lips when you got home, and you decided to leave them there because you just felt like it, okay? Dave messaged you (the lucky bastard, it was 72 degrees and sunny in Houston), you played some Pokémon (your shiny Lickitung kicked ass), you watched reruns of America’s Funniest Home Videos (the finest of television pranks). You finally gave in and texted her at 8 pm, but she didn’t respond. She probably just needed some space.

With a sigh, you decided you could wait. You’d already been waiting for three years, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

How long had you been laying there? It was hard to say. Outside, darkness was the only thing you could see, along with the occasional snowflake (which were smaller than they were this morning) that fell close enough to your window to be illuminated by the lights inside. The couch wasn’t exactly comfortable, since your feet stuck off the edge, but it was where you collapsed after John dropped you off and it’s where you laid in a cloud of apathy ever since. You may have slept a little, but the majority of the time you were just laying there, staring at the blank TV screen because the remote was all the way on the other chair and you just didn’t care enough to get it. It was fucking cold. You rolled over and let your mind sink into nothingness again.

***

Eventually, your stomach protested the fact that the only thing you’d eaten in the past 48 hours was a cup of peppermint coffee, and you dragged yourself into the kitchen to throw a Hot Pocket in the microwave.  
Fuck John. Fuck him and his eternal happiness. Didn’t he know that the world sucked? Why didn’t anyone tell him? You tried to tell him. You try every day, in fact—but he just laughs and says something horrendously dorky like “Cheer up, Vriska!”. And the worst part of it is that you _do_. If you were being honest with yourself, you cheered up just by being around him. Fuck him.  
As if on cue, your phone chimed with the Mario-getting-a-coin sound John had programmed into your phone to be his ringtone. You tried so hard to ignore it, because only REALLY lame people respond right away, but then your Hot Pocket burned you as you took it out of the microwave and it was taking forever to cool and you couldn’t hold back. You checked your phone.

EB: haha okay i just thought of this   
EB: what did the police man say to his bellybutton?  
EB: youre under a vest! 

You took a moment to pause and hate yourself because holy shit, why the hell did you laugh at _that?_ That was possibly the single worst joke you had ever heard. Another _bling_ directs your attention back to your phone screen.

EB: oh come on that was an amazing joke

You hovered a finger over the reply button, but in the end you dropped your phone onto the couch and went back into the kitchen to eat your Hot Pocket. You weren’t in the mood to be cheered up. 

You ate dinner in silence, then went to bed early. You tried not to think about how soft John’s lips were, or how he actually _wanted_ to kiss you. You tried not to think about how it wasn’t just that he wanted to kiss you, but he wanted to spend time with you. He got out of bed just to drive you to Starbucks, and he never asked for anything in return. And he was so happy to do it! Why didn’t he ever complain, or get mad at you? Why hadn’t he left you yet?! He must be stupid. Four years and he never asked for a goddamn thing, never got mad when you didn’t get him anything for his birthday even though for yours he bought you a new deck of cards and a new stack poker chips in the precise shade of blue of your lipstick because “they reminded me of you”. Never left your side when you hit on guys in front of him just to see the look on his face (it wasn’t like you didn’t know how he felt about you), or when you yelled at him after he caught you crying that one time and tried to comfort you. No, he had been nothing but a fucking ray of sunshine, and trying to bring storm clouds to John-land was simultaneously your favorite game and your biggest reason for hating yourself.

Sleep must have taken mercy and overcome you eventually, because suddenly you were in a dream where you didn’t push him away. His lips were soft and his teeth were a bit cumbersome, but you didn’t mind because they reminded you who you were kissing. He gently took your hands off his scarf and held them between you, holding them like you were something to be cherished, and goddamn he seemed so legitimately _happy_ to be kissing you, and you felt like the worlds shittiest person, both for making him wait this long and for giving in finally, because he was so perfect and you were so poisonous. 

You woke up the next morning with a mascara-stained pillow and itchy eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh I have so much planned for this fic! I can't stop thinking about it :>


	3. Chapter 3

You decided enough was enough when Vriska hadn’t answered the last six texts you sent her, even when you offered to bring her lunch. It was the day after you bought her Starbucks (because nothing else noteworthy happened that day. Nope, not that you could think of). A crumpled blue backpack was emptied of school supplies and filled with much more useful items, and then you were trudging through the light snow towards Vriska’s apartment by two o’clock that afternoon. She was going to be happy and she was going to fucking like it.

Sometimes she did this, and you couldn’t figure out a rhyme or reason to predict these—moods, for a lack of better term. She would lie at home, barely eat, and when her mom was home there would be screaming matches that you could swear you could hear from your house. Usually the moods weren’t directed at you and she would show up at your house after a particularly bad fight with her mother, trying to smile (the first sign that something wasn’t right) and demanding use of your couch and TV. Your dad didn’t mind at all. In fact, he’d asked her to stay a few times when she was preparing to go home again. You think that he knew why she came over and wanted almost as badly as you did to prove to her that life didn’t have to be shitty.

You pressed the button on her intercom. _Bzzzt_. “Vriska, it’s me. Let me in, it’s colder than your mom’s heart out here.”

You waited for a full minute before you heard slow footsteps coming towards the door, and then it cracked open enough for you to see a blue eye and the silhouette of some unkempt, tangled hair.

“What do you want, John?” Her voice was husky from disuse, but the fact that she answered the door at all made you smile. You were going to have such a good time with her, she would forget she was ever sad!

“I brought you Subway. And some movies. Now let me in!” 

An eye roll. A theatrical sigh. Then you were in her living room, bouncing with excitement as you handed her an Italian-herbs-and-cheese-bread-turkey-and-pickles-but-no-tomato-with-extra-sweet-onion-sauce sub and started unloading your entire collection of Nick Cage films and spreading them artistically on her coffee table.

“Oh man I forgot how long it’s been since I’ve seen some of these movies. Have you seen any of these? Wait, of course you have, you’ve been to my house too many times NOT to have seen them. Do you have popcorn here? Probably not. Oh well, we’ll have to do without that, but this is going to be so much fun anyway! Where’s that blue blanket that I saw last time I was here? Vriska?”

She hadn’t spoken the entire time you were rambling. No interruptions, no interjections telling you how dumb you were being or saying Jesus John Do You Actually Think We Keep Popcorn Around Here. You turned around slowly.

Vriska was curled in the corner of the couch, forehead on her knees and hugging her legs tightly to her chest. She shook gently, and now that you’d stopped talking you could hear barely perceptible breaths coming from inside her ball, erratic and heavy. You’d never seen her look so small before.

“Hey—“ You took a breath and sat down, not sure what to do. “Hey, Vriska…” You stretched out a hand to touch her hair, try to comfort her, but the moment your fingers brushed her head she jerked away and lifted her head, glared at you from under her bangs.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she whispered. Your eyes widened a bit.

“What?”

“I said, what the FUCK is wrong with you?” she crescendoed, the last few words yelled into your face as fresh tears spilled over her eyelashes and trailed blue pigment down her cheeks. “You come here uninvited, beaming your fucking buck teeth into my eyes and tossing around inane movies like fucking CONFETTI, and you’re always just so goddamn happy all the fucking time and I can’t HANDLE it! I can’t handle you, John. What the hell is wrong with you, following me around like some lost puppy, hanging on every word I say, and it’s like you don’t even care when I completely ignore you, like, isn’t it obvious that I just want you to GO AWAY?”

There was a beat of silence. You were too shocked to move, and your hand was still hovering above her head before you sort of jerked it back down mechanically and reminded your jaw how to work again. 

“You want me to leave?” It came out hoarse, almost a whisper, but it echoed around the silent room as if you’d bellowed. 

More silence, then--

“I—yes. I want you to fucking leave. I don’t even know why you spent so much time with me anyway. Take your movies and get out of my fucking house.” She was done crying now, her face betraying a look of complete defeat. Her eyes were unfocused, her knuckles white where she still clasped her knees close to her body. It broke your heart.

“What if… what If I don’t want to leave?” you asked quietly.

“Of course you want to leave. Everybody leaves. Don’t be stupid.”

“No, see, like you said, I don’t leave.” You let out a laugh, though it was shaky and sounded humorless. “Lost puppy Egbert, that’s me. You’re stuck with me.” You mustered up a smile, trying not to let it falter as only a look of utter confusion crossed Vriska’s face. Not the returned smile you’d hoped for, but you guessed that this wouldn’t be solved in minutes. This wasn’t the conclusion to some stupid action movie. 

“Vriska, I actually like spending time with you. Why can’t you accept that?”

No answer.

“Do you like spending time with me?”

She put her head back down, hiding her face. You heard a mumbled answer.

“I didn’t catch that—“

“Too much,” she mumbled louder, still refusing to look at you. She continued, quieter. “God dammit John, you don’t just kiss your best friend when you don’t even like spending time with him. You’re an idiot if you actually bought what I said about ‘just having fun’.”

You didn’t know how to respond to that. Part of you—most of you, in fact—sprung wings and started fluttering around. She liked you? All this time?

You shook your head, regrouping your thoughts. That wasn’t what was important right now.

“You still wanna watch a movie?”

A blue eye peeked sideways out at you from behind her arm. A nod followed, and you grinned and plugged in _The Family Man_.

The two of you sat under the blue blanket and watched dumb movies for the rest of the day, until she fell asleep on your shoulder. But not before you got her to laugh a genuine laugh for the first time in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter than I wanted it to be, it ended too abruptly, and it played out so much better-paced in my head :/ I'm still learning though, bare with me!


	4. Chapter 4

The first time he kissed you, it was snowing outside but you didn’t care because there was a fire going in the fireplace and you were stuffed with Christmas cake and you were snuggled on the couch with your best friend by his Christmas tree. His dad was in the kitchen making Christmas dinner and you laid with your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and the gentle playing of Christmas music from some mysterious speaker hidden in a corner.

His lips were warm and soft and you tried not to think about how you were getting blue lipstick all over them as he pulled you closer to deepen the kiss, and you let him. When you broke apart, he grinned at you (with slightly blue lips) and you smiled back. 

“John, you are such a dork,” you said with a laugh, and reached up to wipe away the lipstick from his mouth. He shrugged and wrapped his arms around you tighter, holding you like you were something to be cherished, still grinning. You put your head back down on his chest and he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. It was the happiest you’d ever been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, two chapters in a day! Granted, this one is ridiculously short, but I wanted to finish this up by Christmas day so it would match with the story, and I always planned the last chapter to be this short. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting, guys! It means a lot to me. This was my first multichapter fic and personally I'm not thrilled with every aspect of it, but some of you seem to like it so that makes me glad. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!  
> <3 Riy


End file.
